Cam Cole: NHL icons Iginla, Doan were the class of '95 draft

Shane Doan (left) of the Arizona Coyotes and Jarome Iginla of the Colorado Avalanche lean in for position during a November 2014 NHL game in Glendale, Ariz. The veteran stars, teammates on the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, were both picked in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft.

Photograph by: Norm Hall, NHLI via Getty Images

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VANCOUVER — Items that may grow up to be columns, Vol. XVIII, Chapter 1:

HITS AND MISSES: After a night when Colorado’s Jarome Iginla, 38, scored his 600th NHL goal in his 1,432nd game, and Arizona’s evergreen Shane Doan, 39, scored twice in Game No. 1,424, it seems fair to dredge up the sordid past and relive the 1995 entry draft that yielded both these classy stars from the Kamloops Blazers: Doan 7th overall to Winnipeg and Iginla 11th overall to Dallas.

With the No. 6 pick that year, the entry draft’s host team, Edmonton, picked Vancouver-born Steve Kelly, who would play just 27 games, scoring one goal, for Edmonton before embarking on a journeyman career of mostly minor-league and European clubs.

As awful as that looks, Montreal had the pick after Doan (and three before Iginla) and took Terry Ryan, who would play eight games, with no goals or assists, over three seasons before the Habs gave up on him.

MISS AND HIT: Of course, Dallas traded Iginla to Calgary before he’d ever played an NHL game, but the Stars got Joe Nieuwendyk in return, and, three seasons later, a Stanley Cup.

Neither Iginla nor Doan, each approaching the sunset of a wonderful career, has been on a Cup winner.

NOT GREAT SCOTT: All those outraged at the fan voting that made Arizona’s oft-scratched enforcer John Scott an NHL All-Star Game captain need to take a deep breath and hold it for, oh, about 15 minutes.

It’s the all-star game, people. It means the square root of zero — have you seen the effort level? — and is only important to NHL marketers and the corporate schmoozers they entertain for a couple of days. Scott will probably try harder than many of his more gifted fellow fan favourites, all of whom will love having him in the room.

Anyone who actually watches the game should have a good chuckle, and save the aneurysm for more important matters.

JOHNNY ROTTEN: It’s too bad Cleveland Browns (nee Texas A&M) quarterback Johnny Manziel got dibs on the “Johnny Football” nickname before hockey writers in Calgary could bestow “Johnny Hockey” on Flames’ brilliant Johnny Gaudreau. Manziel, who appears hopelessly addicted to booze and gambling and who knows what else, has been a bust by every criteria known to man. Gaudreau, meanwhile, has been a delight whose nickname may always (or until Manziel is no longer in the headlines) feel like copyright infringement.

Manziel once looked like a natural for the Canadian Football League; now, assuming he is well on his way to throwing away an NFL career — give or take the rumour about the ethically challenged Dallas Cowboys — a CFL club would be taking a huge risk to go anywhere near him (see Lawrence Phillips, Art Schlichter, Todd Marinovich, et al.)

WIKI-LEAKS: Had forgotten, until looking up Marinovich’s record, that the former USC-L.A. Raiders QB’s comeback from a drug-plagued career included CFL stops in both Winnipeg and B.C., where (per Wikipedia, not always reliable), by now addicted to cocaine and heroin, he cut his hand badly on a crack pipe at halftime of a 1999 Lions game, had to covertly bandage himself, and was still asked back the following year, but knew he was done.

THOSE MANNING BOYS: On a happier note, sort of, the NFL’s funniest quarterback and finest pitchman, Peyton Manning, is now back at the helm of the Denver Broncos after coming off the bench to win Sunday’s game against San Diego and clinch the No. 1 seed in the AFC.

Otherwise, though, it was a tough week for him and his kid brother Eli, who was brought to tears by the departure of Giants head coach Tom Coughlin. Eli’s the sensitive type, and felt the players (including himself) let the coach down, not the other way around.

EVERYONE LOVES PEYTON: Meanwhile, Peyton was busy pooh-poohing those Al Jazeera stories linking him to human growth hormone, and getting plenty of support from his many allies in the TV business.

Fairly or unfairly, the amount of abuse heaped upon an athlete linked to doping is inversely proportionate to how well-liked he or she is. Manning is a prince with the TV people.

HEADLINE NEWS: Funniest Twitter post of the week was the one showing photos of Peyton as a college quarterback at Tennessee alongside one of him now.

DOUBLE STANDARD: Some of the same people who defended Team Canada’s world junior effort with “they’re only kids” take great offence that Tampa Bay’s Jonathan Drouin, not yet 21, wants a trade that would release him from Lightning coach Jon Cooper’s doghouse. The 5-11, 190-pound forward, picked No. 3 overall in 2013, may or may not play again in Tampa, but if he doesn’t, someone is going to end up with a very skilled player who, with a little prodding in the right direction, could be a guy to build a top-6 forward group around.

Shane Doan (left) of the Arizona Coyotes and Jarome Iginla of the Colorado Avalanche lean in for position during a November 2014 NHL game in Glendale, Ariz. The veteran stars, teammates on the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, were both picked in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft.

Photograph by: Norm Hall, NHLI via Getty Images

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